Three CS8 boys basketball teams hold top seeds this week

Central State Eight Conference boys basketball teams will find out if they're as good as others think over the next five days as the nine league teams head off to play in six different holiday tournaments.

Central State Eight Conference boys basketball teams will find out if they're as good as others think over the next five days as the nine league teams head off to play in six different holiday tournaments.

Three CS8 teams — Lanphier, Lincoln and Sacred Heart-Griffin — are No. 1 seeds in their respective tournaments. Lanphier got the top seed at the Pekin Insurance Holiday Tournament, Lincoln is No. 1 at the Schnuck's Collinsville Holiday Tournament and SHG is tabbed as the team to beat at the Breese Mater Dei Holiday Tournament.

Lanphier is flying high with an 8-0 record and the No. 4 ranking in The Associated Press preseason Class 3A state rankings. The Lions' closest game was a 70-59 season-opening victory over Harvey Thornton in the Decatur Team Soy Capital Turkey Tournament. Lanphier is forcing opponents into an average of 26 turnovers per game, and the Lions average almost 17 steals per game.

The Lions won the Pekin Tournament last year for the third time in the tournament's 49-year history and for the first time since 2001. Bartonville is the No. 2 seed. The tournament title game is Saturday night.

Lincoln won the consolation title at Collinsville last year after dropping its opening game 56-49 to Oakville (Mo.). The Railers are 7-0 and ranked No. 8 in the AP preseason Class 3A poll. Lincoln opens against Granite City — the same team it beat in last year's consolation title game — at 1 p.m. today. The tournament title game is Saturday night.

Southeast, which finished fifth at Collinsville last year and last played for the tournament title in 2010 when it finished second to Belleville East, opens today at Oakville. The Spartans are 4-5 and have lost three straight, including dropping a pair over the weekend at Lincoln and Evansville Reitz Memorial at the Evansville Bosse Winter Classic.

At Breese Mater Dei, Sacred Heart-Griffin comes in with just a 2-3 record, but that hasn't fooled the coaches who seeded the teams. The Cyclones have a full complement of players — starters Malik Turner, Gabe Green and Nate Lowis didn't join the team until the day before the season opener because all three were starters on the Cyclones' Class 5A state football championship team — and are healthy. After losing three straight, SHG beat Springfield High by 22 last Saturday.

The Cyclones play two games today in the pool-play tournament that concludes Monday. Orlando (Fla.) Edgewater is seeded second, Nashville is No. 3 and Carlyle — SHG's opponent at noon Saturday — is No. 4.

Two CS8 teams are entered in the large school division of the State Farm Classic in the Blooomington-Normal area, including Chatham Glenwood, which spent from 1996 to 2012 playing in the Collinsville Tournament. The Titans have won five in a row behind high-scoring Peyton Allen, the CS8's leading scorer at 27.5 points per game. Glenwood opens today at Illinois Wesleyan's Shirk Center against Calumet City Thornton Fractional North.

Page 2 of 2 - Springfield High, which has won three of its past five, brings a 3-6 record into today's game at the Shirk Center against the tournament's top seed and the state's top-ranked Class 3A team, North Chicago.

For the second year in a row Taylorville will serve as host to a round-robin tournament that includes the defending champion host Tornadoes as well as Rochester.

Taylorville won its first four to claim the Stove Top Stuffing Classic over Thanksgiving week, but since then the Tornadoes have dropped three straight, including a 60-43 loss to Rochester last Saturday. Injuries have hurt Taylorville as leading scorer Grant Livingston is sidelined with a broken wrist and point guard Jeff McChristy missed the Rochester game with concussion-like symptoms.

Rochester got its first win for new coach Mike Steers at Taylorville to improve to 1-2. Howard Fisher leads the Rockets in scoring, and the presence of 6-foot-7 Matt Swaine inside — Swaine was a starter on Rochester's Class 4A state championship football team and didn't get on the basketball court until early December — has lifted the Rockets.

Jacksonville, which has dropped four straight after a 2-0 start, is the lone CS8 entry at the Centralia Holiday Tournament. The Crimsons finished second to Class 3A state runner-up Cahokia last year at Centralia, dropping the title game 65-58. Jacksonville opens at 9:15 tonight against Belleville West.